needs some advise

[RocZi]

Hi all,

hope u all can gimme some advise on how to continue playing. I have this lvl 69 barbarian just reaching act 1 hell.

problem is hell act 1 is so hard.

i had already spent 10 pts in energy, i know its stupid but i am a newbie anyways. base stats, 162 str, 93 dex, 160 vitality and 20 energy.

with everything on me including BO and all, i have 500 - 1.3k damage, 5k defense (when using conccentrate skill) , 3k attack rating, 170 str, just enuf for ornate armor and 125 dex. my items - ghoulhide heavy bracers, bladebuckler plate belt, storm blazer greaves, all 19 prismatic amulet, some rare resistant rings, raven shell rage mask, plague bearer rune sword, bone mar tulwar (which can bring my AR to 8k but slow attack speed and 300 - 600 damage only), ornate armor 600+ defense, and a grim shield 45% block with 230+ defense.

i have 1 pt in every warcry skill except warcry and grim ward and Battle orders 20 pt, 20 pt in sword mastery, 1 pt in Increase speed, increase stamina, iron skin and 4 pts in natural resistance. 1 pt in every combat skill but 10 skill points in WW. but I am using COncentrate as my main attack, which has 5 skill points. i know the double attack tree is a waste but i did use a lot of frenzy in the beginning. should i put more to find potion and find item? what about concentrate, should i max it, then put the rest in shout or iron skin?

my resistance are all 75 in nightmare but once reach hell drop to 50+ fire, 20+ cold, 30+ lightning and 20+ poison. i am already dying many times to those hunters in cold plains. those undeads are very stong as well. is it because i have lousy equipment? how can I solo hell in this situation without luring one by one monsters which can take hrs to complete one quest...

[Amiron Samarion]

Imao you should try to use the synergies as much as you can afford.
Ex: Shout 5 Bo: Maxed Bc: 5 points
One skill i think you should put much points into is natural resistance (depending on your eq)
And then Max Ww if you can afford it (depending on your build.)

Im in A2 hell with my lvl79 barb and i still havnt had any big troubles (with one exeption: Chaos sanctuary in nm)

Now my barb is a ww barb so my build is as follow (stats and skills is with all my equipment on.)

Str: 237
Dex: 165
Vit: 210
Energy: Base


Skill points
Shout: 11
Bo: 26
Bc: 11

Mace mastery: 26
Natural Res: 16
Iron skin: 8

Ww: 23
Berserk:9

Pre skills: 1 point in each.
And i intend to max Natural res once i maxed ww. and i will aslo put as much as i can into iron skin.

Equipment

Full Ik Set
Armor socketed with an Hel rune
Hammer Socketed with Jah and Ohm rune.
Helmet socketed with 2 p topaz.

Rings: Mandal heal and Raven frost.

Amulet: Maras Kaleidoscope

Charms: Some that i found along the way, no one is really good but theyre still Useful. :)

[Chameleon]

Do to the nature of the Attack Rating (AR) formula, your character level (clvl) is far more important than your Defense Rating (DR); the formula 100 × AR/(AR + DR) × 2 × alvl/(alvl + dlvl), where Attacker Level (alvl) and Defender Level (dlvl).

Battle Tactics:
Howl + Taunt to isolate monsters easier.
Battle Cry to increase suvivabilty.

Skills:
I like Natural Resistance about 8-10pts.
Find Item is always nice but don't bother putting points into it, finding Heart Carver (Rondel) isn't too hard, dual wield two of these (Nightmare Mephisto will easily drop this item, and lots of other things).
Iron Skin and Shout are useless to you since you are using Concentrate.

You might also want to get yourself a Holy Freeze Mercenary (Nightmare Act 2 Defensive).

[rwbatema]

This won't make you feel much better, but your swords could use an upgrade.

You should decide what attack you want to specialize in. Whirwind? Frenzy? Concentrate? It sounds like you want Concentrate.

Concentrate probably works better with a single weapon and a shield. 75% blocking would make your life a lot safer.
Concentrate also gets a Synergy bonus from Battle Orders. Max this fast.

A nice trick for Barbarians is to keep to "Echoing" (+3 war cries) weapons on switch. Use these for casting Battle Orders.

I'm not sure what your life / mana steal is. You should aim for about 15% life steal. Mana steal isn't really necessary for Concentrate, although it is for Whirlwind.

Act 1 Hell is hard because there are lots of undead (no leach). For some reason, zombies are really tough. My Paladin couldn't handle more then 2 at a time until I got a good weapon. There are also lots of ranged attackers which is tough for melee characters - a shield would help. Against ranged monsters, try walking (not running) up to them and pick them off one at a time, while drinking potions if necessary.

WarCry is one of my favourite Barbarian skills. It doesn't sound like you have enough skill points left, but stunning monsters, makes them much less dangerous.

Did you use Sword Mastery?

ps. The double swing tree is not a waste. Frenzy is great.

[RocZi]

hmm i got that holy freeze merc, he is also lvl 69 and he cant stand those hunters as well when they surround him. i use taunt and battle cry a lot. but killing two or three hunters is already a challenge. i use battle cry everytime they got near.

even those slow walking undeads can beat me up pretty easily. chaos sanc is a big trouble for me too if those curses are upon me, other than that i can get thru it okay, not too hard not too easy.

now if i had a full IK set like Amiron Samarion stated above, i would stand a better chance. or a few of those hard-to-get runes to make myself a good runeword weapon or armor would be nice. i cant solo in hell act 1, those champions along the way is a big challenge already.

should i do NM meph, diablo and baal runs to get better equipment before continuing? that is my main problem no? - i lack good equipment... should i focus more on resistance or attack/defense rating, sometimes i dunno how to choose which rings to wear. if i choose attack ratings, i would suffer in resistance and defense or attack rating. i have stop playing coz i know it will be a waste of time and money resurrecting my merc all the time. oh and on potions as well...

pls tell me what to do..

[rwbatema]

The new v1.10 Diablo has made the game pretty hard for anyone is isn't specialized and well equiped.

Your options are:

1) Continue on. This will be slow and painful, but (maybe?) satisfying.

2) Keep your character and get better equipment. Nightmare Andariel, Mephisto, Baal are you best bets for magic find at this point. If you're doing this, get some starter MF equipment: 4 Topaz armor, 3 Topaz hat.

3) Rebuild your character. This is a bit drastic, if you decide what you want your Barbarian to look like beforehand, you can make better use of your stat / skill points.

[RocZi]

u mean my plague bearer rune sword and bone mar tulwar, yeah they arent very good compare to the better ones, but its the best i can get, the only unique sword (plague bearer) gotten thru NM diablo. the tulwar is act1 hell, one of the champion drop it. that's it! never see any other good sword dropped. I had 20 pts in sword mastery.

since Sword and shield is the way to go after reading a lot about it, i have stop using the double tree. i really tot dual weapon wield is a more special ability of barbarian so i put 1 pt in it first incase of anything, but it doesnt make full use of it if a shield is more beneficial.

I have no more skill pts left. and i am doom, i got a 5% life leech ring, a 5% mana leech on a glove (ghoulhide heavy bracers). whenever i see a big mob i WW around and my merc die and i run away coz super healing potion cannot heal faster than they can damage me. if i taunt them one by one, i will grow old by the time i finish act 1 hell. you know there are so many of them. and yeah, cant leech from undeads...

that;s something new, echoing... i understand now.

[ZatarRufus]

...Iron Skin and Shout are useless to you since you are using Concentrate.

Would someone please elaborate on this? Does it mean points in these two skills are wasted/not used when Concentrate is active?

[Obi2Kenobi]

Concentrate works with Iron Skin and Shout. Quite well, actually.

[Obi2Kenobi]

Act 1 Hell is hard because there are lots of undead (no leach).

You actually can leech from undead. It is the skeletons that you can't leech from. Zombies might have a "resistance" to leech, though (33% effective, IIRC). So a low amount, but still leechable.

There are also lots of ranged attackers which is tough for melee characters - a shield would help. Against ranged monsters, try walking (not running) up to them and pick them off one at a time, while drinking potions if necessary.

Why go to them and take hits when you can make them come to you while not attacking (until in melee range)? Taunt causes monsters to run up to you before they attack, and use a melee attack (if they have one... really usefull against those annoying Flayer Shamen).

ps. The double swing tree is not a waste. Frenzy is great.

Frenzy isn't so good at level 1. :P There are only so many skills to go around.